Senator Lambie Slams Government Over Social Media Ban for Under 16s: 'Stop Protecting Tech Giants!

the Prime Minister announced today that a reelected albanesi government would ban the under 16s from using social media sounds great yeah and I off for sending a message that kids are damaged by excessive social media use but my Rory is that kids will be able to get around these banss and there is a heap the government could be doing right now to Reign the tech Giants in but they just don't have the they don't have the courage to do so and the headline looks good right yeah I reckon it's just a smoke scream for their lack of action on gambling reform suck that one up today and like I said there is lot of the lot that government could be doing now to to to let Tech Giants know that the government is serious about protecting Australian kids and adults from social media um at the Joint select committee on social media and Australian Society meta said their products do not harm children they should have an acting award I wasn't in the room but apparently they did this with straight faces you've got to be kidding you Australia does have a regulatory framework for Online safety but the Act was written in a world where just removing the content would fix the problem that's important but it doesn't address the use of algorithms and the way big Tech Giants designed them to pull our kids and keep keep them in there company documents from meta sided in a US case describe several meta officials acknowledging the company designed its products to exploit young minds including a May 20120 internal presentation called teen fundamentals which highlighted certain vulnerabilities of the young brain that could be exploited by product development the presentation discussed teen brains relative immaturity and teenagers tendency to be driven by emotion Intrigue of novelty and reward and asked how these these charactertics could manifest in products in product usage in that case now's Meda said they would rather parents snap stores do the policing they passed the buck and you've allowed them to get away with it you've got to be kidding me you want want the parents to do this with the kids when it's not even their product you should be ashamed of yourselves today honestly just keeps getting worse one Facebook safety executive even suggested the cracking down on younger users and what they might be exposed to it might hurt the company's business how about that right out there and in 2021 Francis Horan a former Facebook product manager blew the whistle telling the US senators that Facebook's products do harm children and that they do Stoke Division and that Facebook could do something about it if they wanted to and I quote these problems are SOL solvable are safer Free Speech respecting more enjoyable social media is possible Facebook can change but is clearly not going to do so on its own end quote during her test Miss horin particularly blame Facebook's algorithm and platform design decisions to any of its issues earlier this year the national Press Club Miss Horan warned bumper sticker Solutions like Banning children under 16 from social media could deputize an historic chance of meaningful change in other words it's just a lazy way of trying to get around it in the case of bans you're almost saying the problem with these platforms is the children they're not the platforms theel not the platforms themselves it's the platforms that the problem not our children and until you start holding them responsible and doing something to those platforms nothing's ever going to change okay nothing's going to change this is becoming a jokey government over there and I've had enough of it the government should take a look at what Europe is doing have a damn good look at what it's doing they have Digital Services act they regulate the algorithms that's the one regulating the algorithms what's stopping you what's stopping you even if our government had the SPO look to Serious Reg like Europe it won't solve all the problems we need to teach our kids to be digit digitally um illiterate literate in Finland and they teach kids from primary school age critical thinking schills that's right they called critical thinking schills this is so they know what they're looking at so they know how to check what is true and what isn't we could also be teaching emotional intelligence when our kids are in primary school but you don't want to invest in that either you don't you just want to continue to do what previous scumm does and keep putting Band-Aid fixes on these this is why you never get the solutions that you want that's why you've got kids out there on the streets out of control all right this is your fault this is your government this is your responsibility and you are failing our children the future you are failing them because you don't have the courage to stand up to them Tech Giants you are going to be the people responsible for the failure of the future it is going to be your government because of your lack of Courage what is new in this place cuz you want to put a bandaid here and a bandaid here instead of stinging instead of stinging queen bee where it needs to be stung stinging it where it needs to be stung right at meta this is meta's responsibility and you're not holding them accountable what's new what's new not holding people accountable and not holding them accountable for what they're doing and destroying our kids lives and D you should be as shamed yourselves tonight uh s lamb